The Art of Practicing® is the unique, comprehensive, and deeply human method I teach that helps musicians cultivate natural freedom and confidence.
This approach melds together four fundamental components that allow your innate abilities to emerge and develop:
- Simple, powerful techniques for creating an optimal mindset, one which encourages mental relaxation and clarity, and kindness toward yourself.
- Aligning and moving your body for ultimate ease and efficiency, so that music can flow through you without obstruction.
- A slow, deep process of fully opening your perceptions to sounds and sensations, allowing you to connect to the living reality of music in your body.
- Organizing sounds into rhythmic groups that feel organic and create forward momentum, to create rhythmic vitality in the music you make.
This work is part of a larger movement in which musicians are now adding to their traditional training by consulting with performing arts medicine professionals, working with Alexander Technique or Feldenkrais teachers, studying Body Mapping, obtaining psychological counseling for performance anxiety, and connecting with other methods that help them identify and release habits that stand in the way of the freedom and confidence they need and want in performance.
All of these methods can be vitally important to a musician who is struggling to gain more ease and confidence onstage—who may even have a performance related injury, or who may suffer from debilitating performance anxiety. And many musicians need to use a combination of approaches to become the performer they long to be.
What Core Element Makes the Art of Practicing® Different?
The Art of Practicing® aligns with and complements these approaches, and it also uses unique and profound methods that go beyond other approaches in getting to the root of musicians’ problems.
The core of this unique approach developed from my practice of mindfulness-awareness meditation, which exponentially increased my awareness of every detail of sound, rhythm, touch, and movement at the piano.
Over time, it also profoundly liberated my musical energy by transforming how I aligned and moved my body at the piano.
Practicing became a whole new ballgame—in fact, it became a vibrantly alive mindfulness-awareness practice in itself.
And teaching became extraordinarily rewarding because I could now teach this way of practicing to my students, leading them to discover a whole new level of joy and confidence in both practicing and performing.
How Does It Work?
In mindfulness-awareness meditation you practice noticing the alternation between being caught up in thought and just being aware of your breathing in the moment. This process of repeatedly noticing that your attention comes and goes—how you flip between what’s happening right now and your random, extraneous thoughts—literally rewires your brain.
It trains you to let go of mental preoccupations and habits and to become more aware of what’s really happening now.
Similarly, in the Art of Practicing® you practice noticing and letting go of physical and mental tension that disconnect you from your body and the music.
This process relaxes your mind and body and opens up the full range of your perceptions. So you’re training yourself to connect more and more strongly with the sounds and sensations of making music.
It’s like putting a magnifying glass over your practicing: You perceive more. You hear and feel more as you practice. Musical vibrations literally fill you up more. They live inside you.
And as music begins to live within you more, you realize that you don’t have to overexert to make music. It naturally flows from and through you. And you naturally begin to feel free and to trust your abilities in practice and performance.
You gain access to more of what you can really do. And you gradually become the musician you’re meant to be.
If you have questions about this process, feel free to let me know. You’re welcome to set up a free consultation to find out how this extraordinary process can change the game for you—both as a musician and as a person.
Warmly,
Madeline
P.S. In case you’re not familiar with my book, The Art of Practicing, here’s some info and how to purchase it.